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2014 HSS Meeting Wiki
'Welcome to the 2013 HSS Meeting Wiki!' Find other scholars to organize sessions for the 2013 History of Science Society Annual Meeting in Boston. Post your interests and ideas here to find other potential participants! Instructions: To add your topic to the list, please click on the "edit" icon to the right of the title above (Welcome to the 2013 HSS Meeting Wiki). This will open the editing screen, which will show only this opening section. You will not see the rest of the meeting entries; that's okay. You're going to be splitting this introductory section into two parts, one of which will be your session description, which will appear at the top of the session list. To create a new session topic, press enter (return) to start a new line after "Happy sharing!" (below). Type your session title and highlight that text. In the toolbar at the top of the editing screen, you'll see a pull-down menu that says something like "normal text" or "heading 2". This controls the size of your text. Select "Heading 2". Your session title should now be written in large type and underlined with a gray divider-bar. Type your session description below that divider; make sure you type it in "normal text". You can preview your session description by clicking the gray "Preview" icon in the upper-right corner of the editing screen. Again, this will show only this top section and the new section you have created; you won't see the full meeting list. If you like the way your text looks, close the preview window and click the green "Publish" icon. Happy sharing! The Scientific Examination of Art and Archeological Artefacts During the latter part of the twentieth century, many museums installed scientific laboratories for the examination and conservation of artefacts.It has now become standard to perform elaborate scientific investigations before making any alterations to museum pieces. Yet, until the Second World War, science was often mistrusted and neglected as a proper source for art historical knowledge. Scientists were often regarded to be unqualified to speak out on art, and their evidence was considered to be without any value to the real connoisseur or art collector. This confrontation of science and art brings out many interesting themes. The rejection of scientific arguments in art historical debates highlights the public perception of science and art as antagonistic forces, in much the same way as P.C. Snow's famous Two Cultures book. It also underscores debates on the nature of knowledge and the role of the public in endorsing the boundaries of scientific authority. In this session we want to take a broad view on the interaction between science and art, from the seventeenth until the twentieth century. Possible topics may include the role of art academies, chemistry textbooks, and restoration studios, but also the views and activities of prominent scientists, such as Klaproth, Faraday, Pasteur, Pettenkofer and Ostwald, or the investigation of varnishes, pigments, microphotographs, X-ray shadowgraphs, etc. Thee session may furthermore pay special attention to early twentieth century attempts to found museum laboratories, among which in particular the Harvard Fogg Art Museum was a world pioneer. Anyone wishing to particpate in this session can send a title, with a short and personal details to geert.vanpaemel@wet.kuleuven.be. Stories about science: mediating between a reassuring past and an uncertain future Whether we think of Whewell in the 1830s, heroic stories of Paul de Kruif in the 1920s, Soviet historians in the 1930s or Conant in the 1940s, or popular history today, stories about science are both about past and future. More explicitly than other forms of history, the history of science in the public sphere has been intended to draw upon past experience to clarify, in the words of the German historian Koselleck, the horizon of expectation. At times of uncertainty and concern these can be both reassuring and a guide. Indeed such concepts as "pure science" can be shaped explicitly by the need to draw upon a constructed past to clarify what is happening now. This session is a home for papers about how stories from the history of science have been used to interpret contemporary experience and claims for the future in various cultures and times. To discuss or offer a contribution, please contact me before 27 March 2013. I look forward to your being in touch! Robert Bud robert.bud@sciencemuseum.ac.uk The Science Museum, London Medieval Science I would like to organize a session on medieval science. I am particularly interested in the medieval roots of the Scientific Revolution, interrelations between proto-scientific and religious/philosophical thought, artisanal/craft knowledge and scientific thought, and medieval experimental science. I myself would like to present on timekeeping and astronomy, though am happy to (merely) facilitate as organizer. Please contact ken -at- kenmondschein dot com. Session on organismal adaptability in agriculture, conservation, ecology, and beyond In an effort to predict and manage the biological consequences of shifting global and regional climates, scientists depend on understanding how organisms respond morphologically, physiologically, and behaviourally to changes in their environments. This has increasingly prompted discourse among ecologists and agricultural scientists concerning organismal "adaptability," involving concepts like agro-climatic adaptation, phenotypic plasticity, and'' genotype-environment interaction'' (GxE). We propose a panel that will explore the diverse ways in which organismal "adaptability" has been conceptualized and investigated, and the multifarious political, economic, environmental, and intellectual contexts -- at local, national, and international scales -- in which those conceptions have emerged and evolved. Our own research approaches these issues from the perspectives of the history of agricultural research systems, and the history of evolutionary population ecology. We welcome papers from all fields in the history and philosophy of science and technology and environmental history, especially those which challenge the traditional divide between theory and practice. Marci Baranski & Erick Peirson (Center for Biology & Society, Arizona State University) If you are interested in getting involved, please send an abstract to Erick Peirson (erick.peirson@asu.edu ) by March 27. The Power of Analogies for Advancing Scientific Knowledge Everyone uses historical analogies to understand current issues and to help make decisions about present-day concerns. Sometimes they use those analogies effectively, and sometimes not. The current debate over national economic policy is rife with historical analogies and sometimes even the same analogues are deployed to support differing positions. There is a long history of the use and abuse of analogs, offering perspectives on how they might be effectively employed in analysis of current challenges. A key work, but only one of them that might be cited, is I intend to structure this set of case studies along similar lines to those developed in Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May’s classic text, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers ''(New York: Free Press, 1986). They offered a structure that called for analysis if each analog along three dimensions: what are the similarities with the present situation? What are the differences? And then, what are the implications of these similarities and differences? This session will explore the place of analysis using analogies to a set of episodes in the history of science. My own paper is focused on space science and terrestrial analogies employed to speculated about life in the universe. Are there others who would have an interest in this subject in the history of science? Please feel free to contact Roger D. Launius at launius@si.edu. Natural history and natural philosophy in the 18th century The distinction between natural history and natural philosophy--roughly, the observation of nature's effects versus the examination of her causes--was one of the most widely recognised borders on the map of knowledge in the eighteenth century. It was also one of the most frequently crossed: savants of all kinds, from academic chemists to gentleman geologists, freely combined collection, description and classification with the experimental pursuit of causal understanding. I am looking for contributions to a panel will address this paradox by examining the "hybrid" activities that mixed natural history and natural philosophy, the texts that insisted upon the distinction, and the relationship between it and other vexed eighteenth-century dichotomies, such as those between economies and spectacles, the lay and the learned, and the useful and the curious. I am as interested in papers dealing with theoretical statements of the distinction (such as that in the ''Encyclopédie of Diderot and d'Alembert) as I am in papers on how natural history and natural philosophy were related in practice. Michael Bycroft, mtb39@cam.ac.uk. Twentieth-Century Expeditions and Excursions This session focuses on field science in the Twentieth Century, across a range of scientific disciplines. A primary focus will be on the apparatus of field access - cars, airplanes, trains, ships, etc. - as well as supporting actors. The session is not focused so much on the field as a laboratory setting as it is on exploration and description. My paper will examine the Transcontinental Excursion of 1912 of the American Geographical Society of New York, a 54-day field trip organized by Wiliam Morris Davis, a Harvard geographer and geologist, primarily as a showcase for his theoretical work, using landscapes in the United States as specimens. A second paper will look at science as a justifying aspect of the American Everest Expedition of 1963. A third paper may consider biological research aboard a ship in the 1960s. We welcome a fourth paper in this vein. Please contact me at mhineline at ucsd.edu International Relations and Technology Transfer / Scientific Communication; or National Security and Science/Tech in the 20th Century I would like to arrange a panel on topics loosely related to the ties between international relations / diplomacy and science/technology. In particular, I would like to propose a paper comparing the British and French efforts to exploit German science and technology following the Second World War, especially the interrelations between their diplomatic side and the on-the-ground developments. Anyone with paper ideas related to the themes of tech transfer / scientific communication, diplomacy and science, or national security and science/technology in the 20th century, please contact oreagan@berkeley.edu. Mid-Twentieth-Century Transformations in the Medical Marketplace I would like to propose a panel for this year's conference that will explore transformations of the medical marketplace from the Great Depression through the Cold War. I will contribute a paper examining the influence of corporate and state funders on medical research of the relationship between chronic disease and stress in the United States and Canada from 1945-1960. I am looking for co-panelists who will contribute papers that investigate mid-twentieth-century changes in population health, health literacy, health advocacy, health consumerism, medical marketing, or the influence of liberalism on the practice or funding of scientific research. Please contact vburrows@gc.cuny.edu if you are interested in participating in this panel. Reconstruction in paleontology and anthropology - a double-edged sword? ‎ I wish to propose a panel focused on the history of scientific reconstruction (or artwork) in paleontology and anthropology, how it is used to communicate science to both professional and lay audiences, and issues that have resulted from it. My own paper will explore three reconstructions of the dinosaur Iguanodon, and their significance for the way in which not only this dinosaur, but extinct animals in general were perceived. Ideally, we should have contributions treating different locales and/or time periods. If you’re interested in submitting an abstract together with me, please contact me at i.j.j.nieuwland@vu.nl. Child Science – Neuroscience / Behaviorism – Human Sciences in Russia/USSR I am planning to propose a paper on the role of behaviorist neuroscience (namely work on conditioned reflexes by the schools of Ivan Pavlov and, especially, Vladimir Bekhterev) in the history of Russian/Soviet ‘child science’ or ‘pedology’ (the cross-disciplinary, multi-professional movement devoted to bio-psycho-social research into child development and socialization) between the early 1900s and the late 1920s. I am considering discussing how the esoteric discourse of ‘reflexology’ was transposed and strategically (mis)translated across the various disciplinary, professional and institutional boundaries of ‘child science’, namely those of psychology, education, medicine, and state ideology/administration. I would be interested to form/join a panel that would dwell either on the history of ‘child science’ more generally or on the history of behaviorist neuroscience or perhaps on the history of the human sciences in Russia/USSR. If these themes link up with your work and you are interested in proposing something jointly please contact me at: andy.byford (at) durham (dot) ac (dot) uk Catholics and Science in the Nineteenth Century This panel will explore the implications of natural science for Catholics living in the nineteenth century. It seeks to attract papers addressing any aspect of the Catholic encounter with science in any regional context in the hope that transnational perspectives will prove fruitful for discussion and research. Jeffrey T. Zalar, University of Cincinnati, zalarjy@ucmail.uc.edu. Science as an Agent of Continuity We know a lot about how science contributes to change. Explaining change is the major concern of the vast literatures on the scientific revolution, evolution, nuclear physics and the atomic bomb, and the science/technology relationship, among other topics. We design our surveys around eras of significant transformation, and emphasize the biographies of scientists responsible for disruptive ideas. But looking empirically, the bulk of scientific labor has actually gone into maintaining the continuity of established technical systems and social arrangements. I’d argue that while some geologists work on deep time or continental drift, most work on finding natural resources to ensure that existing manufacturing and energy systems can continue. Some atmospheric scientists study climate change; most engage in routine data collection and weather forecasting. Some psychologists seek to probe the unconscious and upend how we think of our selves; many more apply their knowledge to help existing companies sell more products and keep their workforces productive. Most of this science (maybe “technical work” is a better term) happens outside of the academy, and most of it doesn’t get published in journals—it may never be intended for public discussion at all. Consequently, we don’t have very good maps to find where this kind of routine scientific work occurs, or flow charts to see how it has been managed and used. We don’t have accessible censuses of how many scientists are paid to apply existing theory to keep things going smoothly. We don’t have robust theories about how organizations use science to mitigate the impact of changing external conditions on their operations. This session is a home for papers investigating questions about science and stability. How has science buttressed the authority of the powerful? What organizations have used science to keep things going, to support routine maintenance and operations? What kinds of technical expertise were deployed to reinforce existing social, political, economic and cultural orders? What has daily life been like for these technical workers? How do people try to use science to keep this world of flux the same? Paper ideas can be directed to Roger Turner (TurnerR@dickinson.edu) by March 24th. Prospective commentators are also welcome, as is anyone interested in talking about these ideas further. Tools of Global Governance in the Age of Revolutions: Paper, Maps, Statistics Dear all, I am putting together session on Tools of Global Governance: Paper, Maps, Statistics ''in the Age of Revolutions''. My own paper deals with the politico-technical career of writing paper in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries' Dutch empire. Central aim of the session is to explore how the production and usage of paper, maps and statistics co-shaped specific cultures of governance at different locales. In order to work toward a global perspective papers which include colonial bureaucracies in their narratives are particularly welcome. If you are interested in contributing a paper please contact me by 20 March at: a.weber@utwente.nl.' Best wishes, Andreas Weber How Did Nursing Become Science? Emerging as a clinical practice in the mid-nineteenth century with the development of formal hospital apprentice programs and hospital diploma nursing programs, clinical nursing eventually shifted its education to college and university degree programs in the twentieth century. The professionalization of academic nursing, initially through doctoral degrees in education and social science, created a field for practices and discourses claiming space and epistemic authority as a unique nursing science (allied with but distinct from life sciences, social sciences, and medicine). This multidisciplinary panel will examine the development of nursing science in the twentieth century. Interested scholars should contact Thomas Lawrence Long, Center for Nursing Scholarship, School of Nursing, University of Connecticut, thomas.l.long@uconn.edu with a '''one-page proposal '''and a '''one-page vita', by March 28.